Using Flash in email

We are often asked if it is possible to use
Flash movies inside email, and whether or not it is a good
idea. We’ve done some testing to provide a definitive
answer.

The test email

Our test email consisted of a basic HTML page
with text, images and Flash content. We also included a text-only
version of the email with a link to check out the full content
in a browser.

It turns out that the best approach is to use
a background image in the table cell or DIV the flash movie
is being placed.

To cover a solid range of email environments,
our test suite consisted of all the major PC, Mac and web-based
email environments we could get our hands on.

What we found (and it’s not good news
for Flash)

Flash support
across major email environments

PC

Displayed
by
default

Alternate
content
displayed

Security
warning

Outlook
2003

Outlook
Express

Thunderbird

Eudora 7

AOL 9

Lotus Notes

Mac

Mac Mail

Doesn't matter

Eudora 6

Entourage

Web based

Gmail

Hotmail

Yahoo! Mail

Windows
Live Mail (beta)

The results really do speak for themselves (more
details below). Flash support across the most popular email
environments is absolutely dismal. In the past, we’ve
said that unless you specifically know the environment your
recipients are opening your email in, avoid flash. Well, now
we can revise that down to one lonely email client.

Flash was built for the browser, and based on
these results - that’s where it should stay.

A closer look

We’ve included a screenshot and summary
for each of the tests we ran so you can dig a little deeper
yourself. Click on a thumbnail to see a larger version of the
screenshot.

PC test results

Outlook 2003

Before even seeing if the flash works
an ActiveX security warning stops the test. After clicking
OK, the email displays, but the Flash content or the
fallback image is nowhere to be seen.

Outlook Express

Outlook Express behaves much like it’s
big brother. An ActiveX security warning is displayed,
and once the email loads the flash content is just a
blank area with no fallback image.

Eudora didn’t display the flash
content or the fallback image, and even managed to mangle
the background image behind the flash content slightly.

AOL 9

AOL products a very similar result to
Eudora. Neither the flash content nor the fallback image
was displayed.

Lotus Notes 6.5

This was always going to be a stretch,
but you guessed it, Notes didn’t display the Flash
movie or the fallback image.

Mac test results

Mac Mail

SUCCESS! Mac Mail loads
the flash movie instantly and in all its amateur glory.

Eudora 6

Unlike most of the other email clients,
it displayed a broken media icon and the filename of
the flash movie instead of an empty placeholder. At least
this way the user knows they’re missing out on
something.

Entourage

Entourage behaved much like its PC equivalents
but without the security warning. No flash movie, no
fallback image.

Web-based test results

Gmail

If CSS is a no go, we certainly weren’t
expecting flash support. We were right. No empty placeholder
or fallback image, the flash content was stripped from
the email completely.

Hotmail

Just like Gmail, Hotmail stripped the
flash content from the email altogether. No dice.

Yahoo! Mail

Yahoo! Mail is usually the most flexible
web based email client when it comes to displaying content.
Not this time. The flash movie or backup image is nowhere
to be seen.

Windows Live Mail (beta)

It’s probably a little early to
make any concrete assumptions about Windows Live Mail,
the next generation web based email client from Microsoft.
At any rate, it’s not looking good. No flash content,
fallback image or even background images. It does have
much better CSS support than Hotmail, but that’s
another kettle of fish.